6LoWPAN based Neighborhood Area Network for a smart grid communication infrastructure

Neighborhood Area Network (NAN) is a key component of a smart grid communication network infrastructure. A NAN generally works as an access network connecting all the customer equipment and some field devices to the smart grid communication infrastructure to exchange data and control information. NANs can be designed based on infrastructure based access network such as WiMAX or LTE based system to cover a wide geographic area. However, one of the main problems for such NAN architecture is that a centralized base station based system may not be able to provide connectivity to all user equipment or field devices due to presence of low SNR regions with radio coverage area of a base station. To ensure 100% connectivity of NAN devices use of radio mesh networks are now actively being considered by the researchers and electricity utilities and companies. This paper presents a 6LoWPAN based NAN architecture designed to serve all smart meters in a NAN coverage area and also to maintain QoS requirements of different applications within NANs. This paper analyse the performance of a 6LoWPAN based basic radio mesh network using a newly develop discrete event simulation model using the OPNET network modeling package.